But John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of Schools and College Leaders, said such legal rights were 'not appropriate' and would tie up schools' time in needless court cases.

'I'm extremely worried,' he said. 'This adds a law which could potentially lead to great difficulties between parents and schools, who should sort things out in the head's office not in the law courts.'

Mr Balls's wide-ranging white paper, titled Your Child, Your Schools, Our Future, also sets out plans to survey parents seeking a secondary school place for their child to gauge the quality of education in each area.

Councils will be put under a legal duty to respond by converting unpopular schools into academies or forcing them to join branded 'chains' with high-performing schools.

Parents will be asked to sign home-school agreements requiring them to ensure their children behave at school.

Those who break them face court orders requiring them to attend parenting classes on pain of court action and a £1,000 fine.

The licensing check will require teachers to demonstrate they have up-to-date skills and knowledge.

Mr Balls said the scheme was similar to systems planned or already in place for doctors and lawyers. It will be introduced for newly qualified teachers from next year, followed by supply teachers and those returning to teaching after a break, then by the rest of the profession.

It does not apply to private-school teachers who do not have to
register with the Government's professional body, the General Teaching
Council.

Since the GTC was set up in 2001, only ten teachers out of 500,000 have been banned from the classroom for incompetence.

Experts
believe thousands more coast along because headteachers struggle to
remove them. Others are moved from school to school.

The Tories responded to yesterday's white paper with their own
education blueprint, which includes a push to restore rigour to exams
and the curriculum, powers for teachers to discipline pupils and 'free'
schools run by parents or charities.

Tory children's spokesman Michael Gove said Mr Balls had 'nothing original to offer' and was serving up 'old material'.

On the plan to re-license teachers every five years, he said:
'Ed Balls proposed yet another huge bureaucratic measure that will cost
a fortune and cause all sorts of problems. We don't support it.'